Consume

Dec 18, 2012, 08:59AM

The Stinky Stuff is Now Mere Nostalgia

As I haven’t had adventures
in the drug trade for far longer than a dog’s age, I was curious upon reading
the excellent columnist Hugo Rifkind in Britain’s Spectator a few weeks ago discussing the inevitable legalization of marijuana, and more
immediately, tossing off the phrase “skunk cannabis.” Perhaps I’m hopelessly
left behind in modern slang—although one of my sons was only vaguely aware of
it—but apparently in the UK “skunk” cannabis, or weed/pot/grass/dope, is the
extra strong stuff. Rifkind goes on to predict legalization of marijuana in
America and the UK within 10 years, for all the obvious reasons (tax revenue,
freeing up the calendars of coppers, decrease in crime) but also adds that
state-produced pot will be subject to quality control, just like alcohol. I
hope he’s right, and the recent victories for legalization in Washington and
Colorado are encouraging, since it’s a smart economic/societal move that might’ve
been enacted years ago if any national politicians had the guts to rid the
country of this senseless prohibition.

In any case, when I was a
young fellow who recreationally smoked dope, the word “skunk” was applied only
to the very worst kind, usually Mexican, and was avoided unless nothing else
was available. For example, I remember one day at Huntington High School, back
in 1971, when I was trigonometry class and my dealer Tommy knocked on the door,
and said, “Excuse Mr. Miller, but I need to speak to Rusty immediately.” I’ve
no idea why, perhaps boredom, but Mr. Miller rolled his eyes and let me
converse with Tommy out in the hall. “Listen, man, I’ve got your nickel, but
have to warn you that it’s skunk. That’s all that’s around right now, there’s a
bad drought since that bust in Huntington Station.” (This was when a nickel
meant five bucks, and was a quarter ounce; I’m reliably told that prices are
quite more dear in today’s “underworld.”) I slipped Tommy the Lincoln, went
back to Trig, and then during a free period retreated to the woods behind the
school where everyone kept their pipes stashed in trees, and lit up with a
couple of buddies. Skunk.

A few years later, when I
was a junior in college, the rules and varieties of pot smoking began to
change. It was a September day, and my colleague at the Hopkins News-Letter, Dotto, who also raised
tuition dough by dealing, gathered several of us together for what he called an
important announcement. “Gentleman,” he began, “the bad news is that the price
for an ounce has, over the summer, tilted upwards, from $30 to $40. The good
news is that we’re in a brave and glorious new world; this stuff is Columbian,
man, and it’ll knock your socks off. Everybody on board?”

Unless the guy was a
complete dick, you listened to your dealer, since he held all the cards. And as
Dotto was a purveyor of only the best contraband—save the one time he got
gypped by a higher-up who gave him angel dust instead of high-octane weed, and
that was no fun—we all nodded our assent.

And so skunk pot was no
longer in circulation, unless you were really desperate. And now I find out
that “skunk” has an entirely different meaning. The Spectator is one of less than a dozen magazines I still
subscribe to, and read in print, and as you can see why, there’s a very good
reason for that.